Songs about your pets are usually about something much more. We project onto them, we imagine we know what they’re thinking and saying, we begin to see expressions on their faces. Non pet-owners think we’re annoying at best, obsessed and/or pitifully lonely at worst.

But isn’t it true that pets know us? They’ll look us in the eye, willing us to be our best by being the best to them. They notice our every move, looking for snacking opportunities, but also listening with their super-human senses to our heartbeats. Therefore they might know, before we even recognize it ourselves, whether we’re anxious, elated, tired, or ecstatic.

By projecting onto them, we become them (and not vice versa). Adopting their expressions, we take on their animal versions of patience and play. When we train them, they train us to read their desires and through this they inadvertently control our daily rituals. We commit to walk and feed them on time, and this becomes the simple, basic building blocks of a deep friendship.

In between the punctuation of eating and playing, a pet watches us constantly. And I dare any pet-denier to say that our animal friends don’t have incredible abilities remembering. Through the years they quietly witness and register our lowest and highest moments. Without the baggage of human judgement, they develop a kind of animal-empathy, accepting our base-level selves in between the dark and the light. On those mornings where you’d rather not face the world (ever again), they quietly know. Nevertheless, they’ll crowd the bed and step on you until you’re up and ready to play.